DAY 99
CHALLENGE
“God imputes righteousness to us; he doesn’t infuse it, as the Catholic Church teaches.”
DEFENSE
This involves several misunderstandings.
The words “impute” and “infuse” are derived from Latin terms—imputare and infundere—that respectively mean “to reckon” and “to pour in/on.”
The image of God imputing righteousness suggests a legal or commercial context where God either legally declares us righteous or credits righteousness to our commercial accounts. The image of God infusing righteousness suggests a context in which God pours righteousness into us like water into a vessel. Despite the way this challenge is posed, Catholics don’t deny God imputes righteousness to us. They have the same verses saying this in their Bibles that Protestants do (e.g., Gen. 15:6, Rom. 4:3–6, Gal. 3:6, James 2:23).
Also, the image of infused righteousness isn’t frequently used in Catholic documents. It’s only mentioned once in Trent’s Decree on Justification (chapter 16), and not at all in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification and its Annex. The Church more commonly uses the language of infusion concerning the Holy Spirit and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity (cf. Acts 2:17–18, Rom. 5:5, Titus 3:6).
Ultimately, both the images of imputation and infusion can be used to describe God’s saving action. They don’t need to be understood as mutually opposed, so we need to be on guard against mere quarrels about words (1 Tim. 6:4; 2 Tim. 2:14).
Although Catholics don’t deny God reckons people righteous, they do understand God’s word as effectual, so it brings about the effect God declares (Isa. 55:11). Thus, when God reckons or declares people righ- teous, they become objectively (metaphysically) righteous (see Day 350).
This does not mean their behavior instantly changes (though God does begin a work of sanctification that leads them to behave more righteously over time). It does mean that they “are made innocent, immaculate, pure, guiltless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to hinder their entrance into heaven” (Trent, Decree on Original Sin 5).
This point is frequently misunderstood in Protestant apologetics, which often claims that the idea of infused righteousness means a person is not made perfectly righteous when he is first justified. He is (see Day 257).